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Production Company

Malagurski Cinema is a Canadian production company with a chapter in Serbia, making films since 2005.Read More »

Documentary Films

From human rights to economic systems, the topics are presented in an honest and entertaining manner.Read More »

Festival Exposure

Raindance in London, Beldocs in Belgrade, Subversive in Zagreb, Baneff in Stockholm and Oslo, and many more.Read More »

Broadcasted Worldwide

Presented in front of 644 million on RT, 50 million on Eurochannel, and others, the world has seen the films.Read More »

A Fresh Look

Boris Malagurski, born in 1988, with his team of young, ambitious and inspired artists, works round-the-clock.Read More »

Cutting Edge & Provocative

A no holds barred look at local and world issues, aimed to inform objectively and produce social change.Read More »

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Production Company | Malagurski Cinema

Malagurski Cinema is a Canadian production company based in Vancouver, BC. The company is owned by Boris Malagurski and has been developing, producing, and distributing films and television programming since 2005. As of 2012, it has a branch in Subotica, Serbia, while Malagurski is based in Belgrade, Serbia.

Boris Malagurski, CEO

A Serbian-Canadian film director, producer, writer, television host and activist. His films include Kosovo: Can You Imagine? (2008), The Weight of Chains (2010), The Presumption of Justice (2012), Belgrade (2013) and The Weight of Chains 2 (2014), and his work has been screened on festivals worldwide, including Raindance in London, BANEFF in Stockholm and Oslo, Montecasino Festival in Johannesburg, Subversive Festival in Zagreb and Beldocs in Belgrade, and broadcast on TV channels worldwide, including RT and Eurochannel.

Documentary Films | Filmography

The Weight Of Chains 3

In Pre-Production

‘The Weight Of Chains 3′ is a Canadian documentary film in pre-production that will deal with how big business and political interest groups endanger peoples’ health and very existence. Through the analysis of crimes against the environment, genetic modification of food and the urgent issue of climate change, the film will zero in on the example of the former Yugoslavia, a country that, up until the 1990s, used to produce quality organic food, had environmental awareness, a moderate climate and a relatively healthy populace, a region that has now become heavily polluted, with a more extreme climate, rising GMO food production and a population growing sicker by the day. The documentary will then analyze the effects of this unique form of biological warfare on a global scale and try to summarize who the main culprits are, as well as present ways in which the people can organize themselves in rebelling against their demise. It is a film that will change the way you look at your own role in shaping our future.

The Weight Of Chains 2

Year: 2014 | Runtime: 123 min | Language: English, Serbian, Croatian

‘The Weight of Chains 2’ deals with neoliberal reforms in the Balkans and the effects of these reforms on all aspects of life in the former Yugoslavia, from politics, economics, military, culture and education to the media. Through stories of sold off companies, corrupt politicians, fictional tribunals and various military alliances, the film deconstructs modern myths about everything the people have been told will bring them a better life. Featuring Noam Chomsky, Oliver Stone, Carla Del Ponte, Michael Parenti, Diana Johnstone, Vuk Jeremic, Domagoj Margetic, Ivan Pernar, Igor Mandic, R. James Woolsey, Ivo Josipovic, Slavko Kulic, Veran Matic, Jovan B. Dusanic, Mladjan Dinkic, Miroslav Lazanski, John Peter Maher, Jasmina Vujic and others.

Belgrade With Boris Malagurski

Year: 2013 | Runtime: 82 min | Language: English, Serbian

As the first feature documentary film about Belgrade, it presents the Serbian capital through the eyes of its inhabitants, presenting the history, culture, food and nightlife of the city. The film is presented in English and hosted by Boris Malagurski, who aimed to capture the spirit of the Serbian capital. Belgrade boasts a unique quality and energy, in spite of the fact that it was destroyed and rebuilt over 40 times in its history and that the greatest attraction of the city are the citizens themselves. The spontaneity of Belgrade is presented in the film, with interviews with both famous Belgraders, such as Novak Djokovic, but also locals who show that visitors can get to know them very fast, even find a best man for a wedding at short notice.

The Presumption Of Justice

Year: 2012 | Runtime: 40 min | Language: English, Serbian

Through the socio-political overview of the problematic issue of fan clubs and football supporters in Serbia, this movie focuses on a particular case of an incident involving a French football fan in Belgrade, Brice Taton, who died after a fight with Serbian football fans, which led to 12 young people being convicted to 240 years of prison. One of them, Stefan Velickovic, became part of a huge political scandal, as someone who has not even been at the spot of the incident, but was pronounced guilty of a crime. What are the interests and intentions for making Stefan a scapegoat?

The Weight Of Chains

Year: 2010 | Runtime: 124 min | Language: English, Serbian

The film that takes a critical look at the role that the US, NATO and the EU played in the tragic breakup of Yugoslavia. The film, bursting with rare stock footage never before seen by Western audiences, is a creative first-hand look at why the West intervened in the Yugoslav conflict, with an impressive roster of interviews with academics, diplomats, media personalities and ordinary citizens of the former Yugoslav republics.

Kosovo | Can You Imagine

Year: 2009 | Runtime: 30 min | Language: English, Serbian

The documentary chronicles the stories of Serbs who live in Kosovo without any human rights. Most of the Kosovo Serbs are internally displaced, some of them live in small containter camps, in ghettos, all this in the heart of Europe in the 21st century. Ever since NATO and the UN took control of Kosovo from Belgrade after the bombings in 1999, the local Serbs live in fear and despair, with no one to turn to for help. You will be shocked to learn which atrocities they have to face each and every day.

TV Show

Revolution

Years: 2013-2015 | Episodes: 55 | Language: Serbian

A Serbian satirical television show hosted by Boris Malagurski on Happy TV from January 2013 to January 2015. Three seasons were broadcast. The show, in which the host, Boris Malagurski, interviewed state officials, foreign and local experts in a television studio, also featured documentary segments in which Malagurski talked with ordinary citizens in Serbia and dealt with problems in Serbian society. The purpose of the show was not to just talk about problems in Serbian society, but to take action to change them. The show itself only initiated the actions, but then it was up to the citizens to move things forward. The goal was not for him to fix other people’s problems, but to give them ideas and present ways in which they can solve issues themselves. Revolution was banned from television without an official reason given by the TV station.

Cutting Edge & Provocative | Featured Reviews

A young man from Subotica, Boris Malagurski, who just recently grew out of his boys’ trousers, decided to make a movie and show it to the world. While the arrogant big names of the Serbian film industry, professional experts in moving pictures, who are admired by the world when they spit on their own people, remained completely deaf, blind and pleasently immune to all those troubles of a lost Kosovo and the few spiteous Serbs left within it, this young man, with boyish innocence, clearly and defiantly went to this “new” Kosovo, hidden behind a foreign passport and with the help of several important foreigners, filmed scenes of Serbs who are suffering and the factual situation in the newborn Albanian democracy, for which we were bombed ten years earlier. His half-hour documentary is a moving record of the gruesom everyday life the leftover Serbs live in Kosovo, literally trapped in their demolished homes, on deserted farms or, even worse, in miserable container camps, makeshift “temporary” solutions and surrounded by barbed wire.

The question raised by the film is contained in the title – “can you imagine?”, which is the only one that can cover these horrific scenes that shock all who encounter them. Who is this question asmed at? All of us, of course. But mainly to those who had decided that the old, abandoned, tortured and in every way humiliated must cry in front of cameras, hiding their tears from the caring Albanian neighbours who proudly burst into their homes to check what the Serbs dare say in front of cameras. Is this, really, posible in the new millenium, the young author asks himself – his words far deeper, more experienced and wiser than his years would suggest – at the beginnig of the film. He continues to show horrific scenes captured by his camera which, shaped into a film, have, in the past months, become a hit around the world, on the Internet, but also in the diaspora and some festivals, such as the BC Days Film Festival in Vancouver, Canada, where it won Best Film.

Malagurski made the film when he was only 19, but he is far from youthful ignorance, superficiality or being uninformed. In 30 minutes, the viewer also learns the historical context of the Kosovo tragedy and very understandable historical and political reasons why Kosovo is the heart of Serbia and why it can never spill into another country. In the film, Boris presented facts from recent history as well, the ones before and after the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. He explains the past and present demografics of this land and why it has changed in a certain way. An objective and true journalistic approach, as well as brave field work, make this documentary one that could be envied by any filmmaker.

The former republic of Yugoslavia was at the centre of several of the defining moments and conflicts of the 20th century, from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo to the country’s dramatic civil war in the 1990’s. With all that troubled history, as an elderly woman at the outset of Boris Malagurski’s documentary explains, “it’s not easy to say, what Yugoslavia is.”

The Weight of Chains is Malagurski’s attempt to clarify the complexity of the Yugoslavian identity by contextualizing and exposing the reality of the Yugoslav Wars and their aftermath. His sympathies lie with the wronged citizens of each country, born out of the division of the former republic.

Using some terrific archive footage and the testimony of a number of reputable experts, the film traces the fragmentation and separation of Yugoslavia. Malagurski effectively conveys the confusion of the time and, with a biting wit, suggests that nobody is blameless in the escalation of violence. The documentary ultimately appears to be about the “predatory capitalism” that the US and the EU practiced on the Yugoslavian people. Malagurski uses this term and its implications to expose the reality of 21st century colonialism and its cost.

>Gregory Elich | Monthly Review Magazine | New York, United States
on The Weight Of Chains

Who in their right mind would actually want to be a colony? That is the question asked in the opening section of The Weight of Chains, the latest film directed by Boris Malagurski. His film demonstrates how the South Slavs emerged from centuries of colonial rule under the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, and unified to form an independent Yugoslavia. In sharp analytical detail, Malagurski’s film dissects how Western intervention systematically undermined that independence and helped destroy Yugoslavia, plunging the region into war in the process.

This remarkable film reveals how the West subjugated the peoples of the former Yugoslavia and exploited the region through the imposition of free market reforms. In exposing the recent history of the Balkans, the film busts a number of myths. No other film so successfully explains those events while tying them to the wider economic and political trends of these difficult times.

>Vladan Vukasovic | Politika Newspaper | Belgrade, Serbia
on Belgrade

When a man reaches his more mature age, it becomes increasingly difficult to find a truly close friend, someone who is more than just a drinking buddy or a mate for a game of basketball. The comedy film “I Love You, Man” pokes fun at the protagonist who, as his wedding draws closer, realizes that he hasn’t got the right person to choose for his best man, and tries to quickly find such a man, get close to him in time for the wedding ceremony. If the screenplay for that film was written by Boris Malagurski, he would probably solve the main character’s problem by sending him to Belgrade.

It is a city, as Malagurski points out, where, unlike almost anywhere else in the world, a foreigner can not only get kind information from a local about where a certain street is, but can almost instantly gain a friend. And even a best man. This virtue of the Serbian capital, more than any other, inspired this director and screenwriter to make a film called “Belgrade with Boris Malagurski”, which will have its premiere at the Sava Centre.

The spontaneity of Belgraders, which drew and captivated Malagurski, even changed the script of the film. People who happened to be at the filming locations “jumped” into the story, thus turning extras into cameo heroes. The most famous person from Belgrade, Novak Djokovic, also gave his contribution to the film by agreeing to an interview. Aside from the unmissable nightclub rafts, we can also see museums, churches, countless typical strets and, in general, every corner of the city without which Belgrade’s mosaic would not be complete.

Serbian-Canadian documentaristic hitmaker Boris Malagurski, with two sold-out projections at the “Akademija 28” cinema, held the Belgrade premiere of his new provocative documentary “The Weight of Chains 2”. The young author (screenwriter, director, producer and editor) and outstanding documentarian couldn’t care less about political correctness. He, without pardons or delay, “slaps” everyone left and right.

Of course, he doesn’t do it without cause, but with the power of arguments and facts that emerge from a well-written and placed screenplay (built with thorough investigative research), with the help of appropriately selected distinguished interviewees and an expressed documentaristic interpretation of reality. After dealing with the topic of the breakup of Yugoslavia according to Western dictate in his previous hit film “The Weight of Chains”, in his new feature documentary “The Weight of Chains 2”, Malagurski stomps on another, no less important or provocative, topic. Now he comprehensively analyzes which foreign and domestic individuals were key to the economic destruction of our country and deals with the “import” of neoliberalism in the Balkans after the fall of Yugoslavia, as well as the effects of neoliberal reforms on politics, economics, military, culture, edocatuion and, of course, the media. He does so through a series of stories of robbed and sold-off companies (from Subotica’s “Sever” to Vranje’s “Kostana”), corrupt politicians, destructive foreign investors, various economic-military alliances and fictional tribunals. With a clear stance, he deconstructs modern myths about a promised better life, giving examples from the macro level (from the economic schools of Hayek, Mises, Milton Friedman, through the experiences of Chile, Argentina and the rest of Latin America, Rusia, Great Britain, Reagan’s America, Arab countries, Greece, Spain, etc.) he corroborates the sequence of events on the micro level (former Yugoslav republics and Serbia) and by confronting claims made by the interviewees, the message of the film is clearly presented – resistance to neoliberalism is no longer a matter of ideology, but of common sense.

It’s not necessary for you to agree with Malagurski’s ideology to notice that he indisputably made a full-blooded and, for our cinematic terms, unsurpassed documentary. Exciting and dynamic. Fast directing and over 3,100 editing cuts (Milan Lakic from Johannesburg also helped Malagurski with the editing), humorous pasages and “rest periods”, an abundance of archival footage and inserts from domestic movies, use of animation, etc. In regards to both content and form, this is a complex film. Had it ben somewhat more concise, it would have been even better. The fact of the matter is that because of the opening of so many chapters and subtopics and a constant vocal narration in English, which makes for a harder track of Serbian subtitles, “The Weight of Chains 2” will be too demanding for most. But not uninteresting.

Who can resist not seeing and hearing what is said on the “export” and “import” of neoliberalism, disasterous for the masses, by people such as Noam Chomsky, Oliver Stone, Carla Del Ponte, Michael Parenti, Domagoj Margetic, Igor Mandic, Miroslav Lazanski,… Or, who can resist finding out how much money, from whom and with which purpose, was given to our non-governmental organizations.

Documentary film “The Weight of Chains 2” deals with the neoliberal reforms in the Balkan area after the fall of Yugoslavia and the influence of these reforms on the economy, media, army, culture, education and politics, with exclusive interviews with Noam Chomsky, Oliver Stone, Michael Parenti, Carla Del Ponte, Domagoj Margetic, Igor Mandic, Slavko Kulic, R. James Woolsey, Iraklis Tsavaridis and many other experts respected in the world.

Through stories of sold-out and ransacked factories, corrupt local politicians, fictitious courts, destructive foreign investors and different military-economic alliances what’s deconstructed here are modern myths about everything that the representatives of the system promised us would bring a better life. The methods of social control with the help of certain non-government organizations financed by Western governments and funds lose their shape, as a different way is offered, a way that is set to inspire young people to shape the future.

>Raindance Film Festival Review | London, United Kingdom
on The Weight Of Chains 2

Following on from his homonymous first film about the West’s role in the breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbian-Canadian filmmaker Boris Malagurski brings us a new documentary on what happened after Milosevic lost power. The end of a horrific war and overthrow of a dictator should have signalled new hope for the former countries of the Yugoslav Republic; conversely, with ‘help’ from the United States and the shiny new ideals of neoliberalism, economies shrank, income inequality sky rocketed and war criminals were effectively pardoned. Malagurski’s film explores the economic, political and social crimes and misdeeds committed by profiteers in the aftermath of the Yugoslav wars. Not content with this corner of Europe, the film also widens its scope to examine the damage that neoliberal policies have done the world over.

‘The Weight of Chains 2’ is masterfully edited, fast-paced and full of mind-boggling information, intercut with titbits from Serbian comedy films and a wealth of fascinating archive footage. Malagurski’s presentation and narration are passionate, wry and full of humour; anyone looking for a whirlwind education on Eastern Europe, neoliberalism and the influence of the U.S. on the world economy, this is your stop.

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About Malagurski Cinema

Malagurski Cinema is a Canadian production company based in Vancouver, BC. The company is owned by Boris Malagurski and has been developing, producing, and distributing films and television programming since 2005. As of 2012, the company has a branch in Subotica, Serbia... Read More